Muhammad Ma Jian

{{Infobox religious biography

| religion = Islam

| name = Muhammad Ma Jian

| image = 馬堅.jpg

| caption = First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

| image_size =

| native_name = 馬堅

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1906|6|6|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Shadian, Gejiu, Yunnan, Qing Empire

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1978|8|16|1906|6|6|mf=y}}

| death_place = Beijing, China

| other_names = Muḥammad Mākīn as-Ṣīnī, Makin

| nationality = Chinese

| profession = Translator, academic, journalist

| denomination = Sunni Islam

| party = Chinese Communist Party

| main_interests = Translation of Confucian works into Arabic, translation of Islamic texts into Chinese

| notable_ideas = Compatibility between Islam and Marxism{{citation needed|date=March 2022}}

| notable_works = Chinese translation of the Qur'an

| education = Shanghai Islamic Normal School

| alma_mater = Al-Azhar University

| teachers = Hu Songshan

| students = Zhu Weilie

| module = {{Infobox Chinese

|child=yes

|t = 馬堅

|s = 马坚

|p = Mǎ Jiān

|w = Ma Chien

|altname = Courtesy name

|t2 = 子實

|s2 = 子实

|p2 = Zǐshí

|w2 = Tzu-shih

}}

Muhammad Ma Jian ({{zh|s=马坚}}; {{langx|ar|محمد ماكين الصيني}} {{transliteration|ar|DIN|Muḥammad Mākīn as-Ṣīnī}};{{cite book|author1=Kees Versteegh|author2=Mushira Eid|title=Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics: A-Ed|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SuNiAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA382|year=2005|publisher=Brill|isbn=978-90-04-14473-6|pages=382–}} 1906–1978) was a Hui-Chinese Islamic scholar and translator, known for translating the Qur'an into Chinese and stressing compatibility between Marxism and Islam.

Early years

Ma was born in 1906 in Shadian village in Gejiu, Yunnan. This was a majority-Hui village that would later be the site of the infamous Shadian incident during China's Cultural Revolution. When Ma was six years old, he was sent to the provincial capital of Kunming, where he would receive his primary and secondary education until the age of 19.{{cite news |last=Amrullah |first=Amri |date=June 15, 2015 |title=Muhammad Ma Jian, Intelektual Muslim Modern Cina |trans-title=Muhammad Ma Jian, Muslim Intellectual of Modern China |url=http://www.republika.co.id/berita/dunia-islam/islam-digest/15/06/15/npz6cw-muhammad-ma-jian-intelektual-muslim-modern-cina-1 |language=Indonesian |newspaper=Republika |location=Jakarta |access-date=February 15, 2017 }} Following his graduation, Ma returned to his hometown of Shadian to teach at a Sino-Arabic primary school for two years - an experience which he did not enjoy. This was followed by a stint of study under Hu Songshan in Guyuan, a city in the Hui region of Ningxia.{{cite book |last=Aubin |first=Françoise |editor-last1=Dudoignon |editor-first1=Stéphane A. |editor-last2=Hisao |editor-first2=Komatsu |editor-last3=Yasushi |editor-first3=Kosugi |title=Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World: Transmission, Transformation and Communication |url=https://archive.org/details/intellectualsmod00dudo |url-access=limited |publisher=Routledge |date=2006 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/intellectualsmod00dudo/page/n278 260]–261 |chapter=Islam on the wings of nationalism: the case of Muslim intellectuals in Republican China |isbn=978-0415549790}} He then went to Shanghai for further education in 1929, where he studied at the Shanghai Islamic Normal School for two years.{{cite news |last=Ciecura |first= Wlodzimierz |date=April 28, 2015 |title=Bringing China and Islam Closer: The First Chinese Azharites |url=http://www.mei.edu/content/map/bringing-china-and-islam-closer-first-chinese-azharites |newspaper=Middle East Institute |access-date=February 15, 2017 }}

Study in Cairo

Following the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Ma was sent by the Chinese government to Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, to cultivate relations with Arab nations.{{cite news |last=Haiyun |first=Ma |date=May 10, 2013 |title=Go West at What Cost? China's Pivot on Middle East Studies |url=https://islamicommentary.org/2013/05/haiyun-ma-go-west-at-what-cost-chinas-pivot-on-middle-east-studies/index.html#_ftn4 |newspaper=ISLAMiCommentary |access-date=February 15, 2017}} He was a member of the first group of government-sponsored Chinese students to study there - which included men who would later become leading Chinese scholars of Arabic and Islam, such as Na Zhong.Ciecura. While in Cairo, he contacted the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Salafi Publishing House, which agreed in 1934 to publish one of his works - the first full-length book in Arabic on the history of Islam in China.{{cite journal |last=Benite |first=Zvi Ben-Dor |date=2008 |title=Nine Years in Egypt: Al-Azhar and the Arabization of Chinese Islam |journal=HAGAR Studies in Culture, Polity and Identities |volume=8 |pages=3}} A year later, Ma translated the Analects into Arabic. Whilst in Cairo, he would also subsequently translate several of Muhammad Abduh's works into Chinese, with the assistance of Rashid Rida,Ciecura. as well as Husayn al-Jisr's The Truth of Islam.{{cite journal |last=Chen |first=John T. |date=2014 |title=Re-Orientation: The Chinese Azharites between Umma and Third World, 1938-1955 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=35 |doi=10.1215/1089201x-2648560|s2cid=143485363 }} To promote Chinese interests in the context of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ma was sent to Mecca in early 1939 as part of a hajj delegation alongside 27 other students - a journey on which they spoke to Ibn Saud about the determination of 'all the Chinese people' to resist the Japanese.{{cite journal |last=Mao |first=Yufeng |date=2011 |title=A Muslim Vision for the Chinese Nation: Chinese Pilgrimage Missions to Mecca during World War II |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=70 |issue=2 |pages=386–387 |doi=10.1017/S0021911811000088|s2cid=153718423 }}

Return to China

Ma returned to China in 1939. There he edited the Arabic-Chinese Dictionary, while translating the Qur'an and works of Islamic philosophy and history. He also became a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at Peking University in 1946, a role in which he oversaw the introduction of the first Arabic-language courses in the Chinese higher education system.{{cite journal |last=Haiyun |first=Ma |date=2006 |title=Patriotic and Pious Muslim Intellectuals in Modern China: The Case of Ma Jian |journal=The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences |volume=23 |issue=3 |pages=57}} At Peking University, he would train many of the next generation's most prominent Chinese Arabists, such as Zhu Weilie.Ma (2013). His initial translation of the Qur'an's first 8 volumes was completed in 1945, and after being rejected by Beijing publishing houses in 1948, this was published by Peking University Press a year later.{{cite thesis |last=Spira |first=Ivo |date=2005 |title=Chinese Translations of the Qur'ān: A Close Reading of Selected Passages |type=MA diss. |publisher=Oslo University |url=http://folk.uio.no/ivos/files/MA_Thesis_IvoSpira.pdf |access-date=February 15, 2017}}

Following the Chinese Communist Party victory in the Chinese Civil War and the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, he was also elected as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in 1949.Ciecura. In 1952, another edition of his Qur'an translation was published by Shanghai's Commercial Press,{{cite book |last=Waardenburg |first=Jacques |editor-last=Akiner |editor-first=Shirin |title=Cultural Change & Continuity In Central Asia |publisher=Routledge |date=2009 |pages=340 |chapter=Islam in China: Western Studies |isbn=978-1136150340}} and Ma became one of the founders of the Islamic Association of China.{{cite book |last=Guanglin |first=Zhang |date=2005 |title=Islam in China |location=Beijing |publisher=China Intercontinental Press, 77}} As part of this role, Ma also aimed to increase public awareness of Islam - which he did by publishing several articles in newspapers such as the People's Daily and the Guangming Daily.{{cite book |last=Gao |first=Zhanfu |editor-last1=Yijiu |editor-first1=Jin |editor-last2=Wai-Yip |editor-first2=Ho |title=Islam |publisher=Brill |date=2017 |pages=73–74 |chapter=Studies of Islam in China in the Twentieth Century |isbn=978-9004174542}} He also published a translation of Tjitze de Boer's History of Philosophy in Islam in 1958.Gao, 74. Due to his linguistic skills, he served as a high-level interpreter for Chinese officials such as Zhou Enlai, whom he enabled to speak to Gamal Abdel Nasser at the Bandung Conference.{{cite book |last=Benite |first=Zvi Ben-Dor |editor-last1=Gelvin |editor-first1=James L. |editor-last2=Green |editor-first2=Nile |title=Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print |publisher=University of California Press |date=2013 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/guidetolcshinfor00doej/page/264 264] |chapter=Taking 'Abduh to China: Chinese-Egyptian Intellectual Contact in the Early Twentieth Century |chapter-url-access=registration |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/guidetolcshinfor00doej/page/264 }} It was this that allowed him to keep his professorship and post in the CPPCC until his death in 1978, despite widespread persecution of Muslims during the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution.{{cite book |last1=Boyle |first1=Kevin |last2=Sheen |first2=Juliet |date=2013 |title=Freedom of Religion and Belief: A World Report |location=London |publisher=Routledge |page=183}} Ma's mother-in-law, sister and niece were killed during the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution but Ma was unable to voice his personal feelings on the tragedy.{{Cite book |last=Chebbi |first=Leila |title=Brothers and Comrades: Muslim Fundamentalists and Communists |year=2021 |pages=14}}

Following his death, Ma's translation of Philip K. Hitti's History of the Arabs was published in 1979 by the Commercial Press.{{cite journal |last=Zhixue |first=Ma |date=2008 |url=http://www.mesi.shisu.edu.cn/_upload/article/1d/5d/1cde03e04dc083c0a7d481129f92/decdc0b0-a303-4cce-a284-2cb70ba51fdf.pdf |title=The Latest Edition of History of the Arabs: Prefaces and Postscript |journal=Arab World Studies |volume=5 |pages=81}} The China Social Sciences Press also posthumously printed, in 1981, his complete translation of the Qur'an, which Ma had worked on up until 1957, and then between 1976 and 1978.{{cite news |last=Petersen |first=Kristian |title=Qur'anic Interpretation in China |url=http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t343/e0154 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150317233217/http://oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t343/e0154 |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 17, 2015 |newspaper=Oxford Islamic Studies Online |access-date=February 15, 2017}}

Influence

His translation of the Qur'an remains the most popular in China today, surpassing versions by Wang Jingzhai and Li Tiezheng.{{cite journal |last=Wang |first=Jin |date=2016 |title=Middle East Studies in China: Achievements and Problems |url=http://www.rubincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/06_Wang-tz-au-TZ-PDF.pdf |journal=Middle East Review of International Affairs |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=51}} It has been lauded for its faithfulness to the original, and has reached an 'almost canonical status'.Spiro, 23-24. The quality of this translation has also been recognized internationally - with the Medina-based King Fahd Holy Qur'an Printing Press opting to use it for their Arabic-Chinese bilingual edition of the Quran, published in 1987.Petersen.

References

External links

{{in lang|zh}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20070712035029/http://www.norislam.com/informations/2007-01-11/informations_20070111120538.html Biography of Ma Jian and his translation of the Qu'ran].
{{in lang|en}} [http://al-quran.info Al-Quran] project includes Ma Jian's Quran translation (both in classical and traditional Chinese).

Category:1906 births

Category:1978 deaths

Category:Chinese spiritual writers

Category:20th-century Muslim scholars of Islam

Category:Chinese Muslims

Category:Al-Azhar University alumni

Category:Arabic–Chinese translators

Category:Translators from Chinese

Category:Translators to Arabic

Category:Hui people

Category:Writers from Yunnan

Category:Chinese Confucianists